Saturday, 12 January 2013

1913 was only a year away from WWI – are we
on the brink of a similar catastrophe? Currently we have 12 international and
27 intrastate armed-conflicts going on.

One thing has definitely changed in the past
100 years. In 1913, the West was The World: everywhere else was seen as backward
sources of raw materials and ground for exploration/exploitation. In 2013, the
West is in decline and many ancient civilizations are recovering to take their
rightful places. The world is becoming a multipolar world of Facebook users.

Many events in 1913 shaped the lives of
people for generations. Some of these events were continuations of a long chain
of events, while others were spontaneous game-changers.

Let’s take a look at what was happening in
1913 around the world:

Russia:

The Romanov dynasty is busy celebrating their
300th anniversary, blissfully unaware that in about 1300 days it’s game over for them. 100 years later, the
Russian Orthodox Church sanctifies the Romanov family.

Russia is the world’s largest food exporter.
In 100 years Russia drops to 157th rank.

Russia’s foreign debt to GNP ratio was 40% in
1913. It is 8% compared to 105.7% of USA in 2012.

China

First elections for the National Assembly
held. 4-6% of the population were registered as voters. Kuomintang (the Nationalist) party led by Song Jiaoren won
majority. Song was promptly assassinated on March 1913, probably machinated by
the president Yuan Shikai, who two years later would become the unpopular and
weak Great Emperor of China.

Yuan Shikai borrows £25 million without parliamentary approval
to prepare for civil war against the Kuomintang
and nationalizes railroads (some owned by foreign capital). 100 years on USA
owes $ 1.3 trillion to China.

Britain
agrees to end opium exports from India (which it doesn’t, as opium accounted
for about 20% of British India’s revenues). China under Mao finally got rid of
this opium addiction. 100 years later Chinese people
are very busy getting addicted to other things.

Mexico

The Mexican Revolution continues. 75
presidents in 55 years since independence (1821) – President Madero and vice
president Suárez are assassinated. The Mexican public believe that the
president was betrayed with the US ambassador’s help. A tradition is born: Everything
that goes wrong is promptly blamed on US involvement.

Mexico becomes the third largest oil
producing country in the world, after USA and Russia. 60% of production is owned
by Englishman, Sir Weetman Pearson’s company (Viscount Cowdray). 100 years on Pemex,
fully owned by Mexico government, is the world’s second largest non-publicly
listed company with a monopoly of gas stations in Mexico.

India

Rabindranath Tagore (Thakur), the first
Asian, gets the Nobel Prize for literature, previously given only to Europeans (no
American got it before 1930, Sinclair Lewis). He was awarded this prize as an
“Anglo-Indian” (which he definitely wasn’t!). The Nobel committee reasoning:

“Tagore has been hailed from various quarters as a
new and admirable master of that poetic art which has been a never-failing concomitant
of the expansion of British civilisation ever
since the days of Queen Elizabeth.”

IT milestone: The first automatic telephone exchange in Shimla, India with a 700 lines capacity (939 million users in 2012),
established. Indians perfect the art of shouting in a loud trunk-call voice when speaking on the telephone.

Enrolment rate for primary school in 1913 is
2.38% in India compared to 3.77% Russia, 8.94% Sri Lanka, 13.07% Japan. 100
years on the rate is 92% but 25% of teaching positions in India are vacant.

0.49% of Indians enrolled in secondary
schools compared to 0.32% in France and 0.62% in England. In 2012, the rate is
59% but 57% of Indian college professors lack either a master’s or PhD degree.

Literacy about 10% (compared to full literacy
in Japan) becomes 74.4% in 100 years.

UK

Half
of the entire global stock of foreign direct investment is owned and managed by
British entrepreneurs, exploiting natural resources and infrastructure by using
small, free-standing rather than fully integrated companies. UK
is in the 18th position by 2010.

First nationwide film censor The British Board of Film Censors began
operating. Nowadays many older people wish they’d censor more.

The
value of British overseas investments 49% of net national wealth. 100 years on
it is 65%.

Stainless
Steel is invented by Harry Brearley in Sheffield. 100 years on, no one can
imagine a world without it.

House of Commons rejects women's right to vote. Suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst
sentenced to three years of penal servitude for demanding votes for women:
Women over 30 would get voting rights only in 1918. In 2011, 400 000 people
(half of them women) march for an alternative to the current socio-economic
system.

The first woman magistrate Miss
Emily Dawson appointed in London: Only in 2004, is Britain’s first Asian woman
magistrate Revinder Johal appointed.

Margaret Cousins (Irish),
suffragette, released form Tullamore Gaols: migrates to India and becomes
India’s first woman magistrate in 1922. She was thrown again to prison in 1932 for
protesting against the law curtailing free speech in India. The Indians actually never stopped talking.

France

The
Mona Lisa is returned to France by
Italy after Vincenzo Peruggia was caught trying to sell it to the Uffizi
Gallery in Florence. Mona Lisa was
displayed all over Italy until 30.12.1913. Art and cultural property crime is a
$6 billion industry
nowadays with major government and international agencies fighting against it.

The
16th Amendment to the constitution allows the Federal government to
impose and collect income taxes. 100 years later a new word Taxmageddon is coined as government aims
to make every household pay an extra $3,446
annually and collect $536 billion to stem the deficit
tsunami

The
world’s largest railway station, New York’s Grand Central Terminal is reopened.
In 100 years, USA becomes the backwater of railroads compared to Japan, China
and other countries.

The
Woman Suffrage Parade of 1913 is led by Inez Milholland riding on a white horse,
with nine bands, four mounted brigades and celebrities like Helen Keller. Women
gained the right to vote in national elections in 1920 (New Zealand in 1893 and
Saudi Arabia not yet in 2013). Sarah Palin almost became Vice President in
2008.

Battle
of Bud Bagsak – The Moro people, wielding spears and Kampilan Swords in the
Philippines, including women and children are all killed by US troops led by
General “Black Jack” Pershing. “Rather than impose a democratic system for
which the people were unprepared, General Wood crafted a paternal system of
government”. In 100 years the language would change to include terms like regime change, weapon of mass destruction,
war on terrorism, enemy combatant, authorization for use of military force
against terrorists, conditional detention etc.

The
Federal Reserve System as the central banking system is created with three key objectives for monetary
policy—maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates:
Very good dreams still to be realized 100 years later.

Camel cigarettes are introduced.
For the first half of the century it actually had a picture of a dromedary (with two humps) on the pack,
which has now become a camel with one hump. It should be the opposite but no
one really cares.

Blacks
are forbidden by the parliament of South Africa from owning or buying land from
whites. 100 years later white poverty is blamed on Affirmative actionreserving 80% of jobs for blacks and 450, 000
whites (10% of white population) live below poverty level.

Mohandas
Gandhi is arrested while leading a march of Indian miners. He will be arrested
many times before he is killed in 1948. 100 years later, Indians have to commit serious crimes to get arrested in South Africa and do not become a Mahatma in India after getting arrested.

"Over [future] cities the aerial sentry or policeman will
be found. A thousand aeroplanes flying to the opera must be kept in line and
each allowed to alight upon the roof of the auditorium in its proper
turn."

12 year old Edgar Codling of Hillington, Norfolk, UK was very much a visionary:

Aeroplanes will be seen floating in the air
and would be as common as motorcars. They will be used of business and
enjoyment too.